price was now up to eight million pounds. Dani inched a little closer to the desk, marvelling at his calm. It probably wasn’t his money he was spending, but if it’d been her, she would have buckled under the pressure. The next million took only two or three minutes to be disposed of. Still Quinn looked at her face.
“Ten million pounds, sir?”
He didn’t flinch, but she did. While she’d been thinking about him, about his face and concentration and possible means of celebration, she had waylaid a couple of million.
Quinn quietly affirmed.
Ten million! That was how much in Australian dollars? For a painting?
The next pause was a long one. Dani was halfway across the room now, just a few more steps to the chair in front of his desk.
“The other party has just bid eleven, Mr. Everard.”
“You may proceed,” Quinn said quietly, and flexed the fingers of his right hand.
Dani covered her mouth with her hand and moved to the desk. The tension was killing her, but how cool he was. No sign of emotion crossed his features. He might have been reading the paper.
The minutes crawled by. Twelve million came and went. Her throat felt like sandpaper and she swallowed. Quinn lifted the glass and moistened his lips, then held it out to her.
Cognac. She would never smell it again without remembering this night. It slid down her throat and washed her lungs with heat. Slowly she rolled the glass over her forehead before setting it down on the desk. She had to lean well forward to get it within his reach, so she edged one hip onto the desk, twisting around to face him.
His eyes were inscrutable. A trickle of sweat began its journey down her spine, surprising her. She arched a little as the fabric of her silky robe slid over and cooled the moisture. A tiny flicker of that mahogany gaze told her he’d noticed, but not one muscle in his face twitched.
“Mr. Everard,” the bid clerk’s nasal voice intoned. “The other party has entered into a consultation with his client. Are you happy to hold?”
“Yes.”
Dani’s breath gushed out and she stretched her tense limbs and rubbed the back of her neck, thankful for the intermission.
“By the way, Quinn …” The man on the line lowered and warmed his voice. “That commodity you were interested in? A blank wall so far, I’m afraid. However …”
Quinn shifted but made no response to her raised brows. “Go on.”
“A gentleman of my acquaintance has recently returned from visiting the big house on the other side of town. He owes me certain favours.”
Quinn chuckled. “You run with the most appalling crowd, Maurice.”
“I will let you know directly if I can be of any further assistance,” There was a muffled crackle and muted voices. “I think we are ready to resume, sir.”
“Thank you,” Quinn murmured, his eyes back on Dani’s face.
She lost the ability to judge time in the airless room. The performance may have lasted ten minutes or an hour. The last two million pounds advanced and Dani took another sip of liquor, her nipples prickling with the knowledge that he watched her every move. Rather than push the glass across the desk, she walked around to his side, placed it in front of him and leaned against the desk beside him. Quinn swivelled in his chair to face her, still holding her prisoner with his eyes.
Fourteen million pounds.
Dani swallowed.
Fourteen-point-two million. The other bidder had opted to chop the bid. Quinn offered no objection, neither did the auctioneer, apparently. Dani cleared her dry throat and helped herself to another sip of cognac while he watched.
Fourteen-point-five million. The room spun a little, which could have been the cognac. It was like a vacuum in here. Quinn Everard stared at her calmly, steadily, and the bid rose another massive increment. The tension was unbearable.
The skin of her throat and face tickled and she swiped at it, somehow agitated and afraid for him. She could not even contemplate him losing now, not after this. Not when she felt so sensitised, so aware of his gaze gripping her, holding her up.
Fourteen-point-seven million pounds for lot seven, going once. She chewed on her thumbnail, praying. Her chest rose and fell as each breath tortured her lungs.
Fourteen-point-seven million pounds for lot seven, going twice. Dani sucked in a massive breath, held it. This was it!
It was over! Quinn had won the bid.
Air gushed out from her lungs and she slumped momentarily, but then elation poured through her like the most illicit rush. She leapt in the air, her arms high above her head, her hands fisted in victory. For the first time in many minutes, maybe even an hour, Quinn was not looking at her. He stared at the file on the desk. His shoulders were rigid.
“Congratulations, Mr. Everard, and thank you for participating.”
He exhaled slowly. “Thank you, Maurice.” He paused, as if about to add something, but then looked up into Dani’s face. “Thank you,” he repeated, and she saw that his teeth were clenched. His hand shot out and hit the switch of the phone. Then he was standing in front of her, gripping her waist hard. He dragged her forward into him, his body like stone against her soft, yielding form.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and sagged against him, burying her face in his shoulder. Quinn moved so that her head tilted up, her throat exposed.
Bite me, she thought, her blood screaming in her ears. She was leaping out of her skin. Never had she reached this peak of excitement in her life, and she couldn’t begin to think of consequences, other women, her heart, his hatred for Howard.
As if he’d heard her plea, Quinn lowered his head and nuzzled the hollow at the base of her throat briefly, then took her mouth hard. The taste of leather and almonds from aged cognac filled her mouth. His need for her came from farther down where his groin pushed into the silk-clad vee of her thighs. With a strangled gasp, she pushed back, feeling the distended ridge of his fly, every link of his zipper.
His tongue lashed hers, teeth knocked and scraped. She gasped breathlessly when his hand cupped and squeezed her buttock, forcing her forward. Then his hand ran down the short robe and to the sensitive back of her thigh, lifting it high and hard against him, so that her leg came up and wrapped around his hip. Her mind splintered with a desperate need of carnal contact.
She got it in spades, and the more she jerked against him, the higher she went. Grinding and straining, she became something—someone—she had no control over. She was on a collision course with a cyclone, building higher with every lash of his tongue deep in her mouth and every hard, fast thrust against her hot centre. And then he gripped the soft inside of her leg from behind and moved up, his seeking fingers sending a bolt of fiery energy searing through her. She lost the battle to be aware of her actions or his. All she knew was a wave of scalding pleasure that fisted and ebbed and fisted again and again, driving everything out of her mind.
She sagged against him, trying without success to halt the slide of her leg down his. Boneless, still swimming in pleasure, she trusted
